Interplay’s Brian Fargo finds fan funding for Wasteland sequel

Fans have already contributed nearly $1 million to a Kickstarter aimed at …

Nearly a quarter of a century after the initial release of Interplay's seminal post-apocalyptic PC RPG Wasteland, a sequel is finally, officially in the works—thanks to close to a million dollars contributed directly by fans just over two days after the launch of a Kickstarter project to fund the game.

Wasteland creator and Interplay founder Brian Fargo, who gamers might know for his work on the Fallout, Baldur's Gate, and Bard's Tale series, writes on the Kickstarter page that this was probably the last chance for a Wasteland sequel to get made, thanks to consistent disinterest in such an old-school, top-down RPG from publishers. Fargo says he wants to recapture the feeling of a game "made during the golden era of computer games when creativity was king," and possibly "bring back an entire genre of RPGs" with a successful launch.

Nearly 17,000 backers have already put in at least $15 towards what is essentially a prerelease purchase for the game, which Fargo says should take him and the team at inXile Entertainment about six months of preproduction and 12 months of active development to create. Eight backers paid over $10,000 to earn attendance at a private party with members of the Wasteland 2 team, as well as a shrine in their honor inside the game world.

With 33 days left in the fund, it seems likely the project will reach the $1.25 million milestone the team says is required for "making the world bigger, adding more maps, more divergent stories and even more music." If the project reaches $1.5 million in funding, the team has promised even more expansive gameplay and a Mac OS version of the game.

Kyle Orland
Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area. Emailkyle.orland@arstechnica.com//Twitter@KyleOrl

Oh god NERDGASM! I grew up in the golden age of the 8-bit computer RPGs and cut my teeth on Commodore 64 classics like Ultima 3 and 4, Brian Fargo's own Bard's Tale, and many others. My 8-bit swan song before moving on to an Amiga was my all time favorite, none other then Wasteland.

With a combination of Bard's Tale combat with the addition of incredibly gory 'overkill' text (which thankfully was carried over into Fallout) and a top-down world view system consisting of some amazingly well thought out post-apocalyptic landscapes (The future is a touch more upbeat then Fallouts, but not much) with choices carrying real consequences which along with Ultima 4 were the innovators of that aspect of future RPGs, (Getting the clap from a hooker was a highlight memory!) as well as some highly imaginative if not extremely bizarre elements like voyaging inside the mind of a dying artificial intelligence made this game one of the most vividly remembered experience of my early teen years.

I prayed for years for a sequel, and the Fallout series slaked my thirst, but it wasn't, y'know, WASTELAND.

So uh, Kickstarter, eh? Yeah you bet I'm kicking in a few bucks for a dream come true.

I'm still amazed at how playable I find Wasteland to be. Their very simple graphics, text, etc still evoke a better playing experience than expected. I like the Fallout series, but I'm happy to see them go back to the original. I can only hope that the enthusiasm continues and they are completely deluged in funding.

I was only vaguely interested, as the original game was before my time...but Michael Stackpole is involved? Heck yeah. Excellent writer. I didn't know until now that he did video games before his writing career took off.

I can't see the really huge AAA titles ever being funded this way, but good RPG, adventure and strategy games in the $1m to $3m range are clearly possible.

Along with alphafunding, this form of patronage-led funding is perfect for small to mid-sized Indie developers like inXile or Double Fine who have, to put it bluntly, been nothing but repeatedly fucked over by idiot publishers.

Meanwhile the "AAA publishers" can continue to spunk out their annual prolefeed updates and leave the rest of us the fuck alone to play the sort of games we want to play.

Given the way Obsidian Entertainment have just been brutally shafted by their publisher with very little romance, I am hoping that a Chris Avellone Kickstarter might be lurking around a corner.

I can't see the really huge AAA titles ever being funded this way, but good RPG, adventure and strategy games in the $1m to $3m range are clearly possible.

Along with alphafunding, this form of patronage-led funding is perfect for small to mid-sized Indie developers like inXile or Double Fine who have, to put it bluntly, been nothing but repeatedly fucked over by idiot publishers.

Meanwhile the "AAA publishers" can continue to spunk out their annual prolefeed updates and leave the rest of us the fuck alone to play the sort of games we want to play.

Given the way Obsidian Entertainment have just been brutally shafted by their publisher with very little romance, I am hoping that a Chris Avellone Kickstarter might be lurking around a corner.

Planescape 2? *bankrupt face*

I'm fairly sure my donation for a Planescape 2 would lead to my wife divorcing me, but I'd do it anyways.

I can't see the really huge AAA titles ever being funded this way, but good RPG, adventure and strategy games in the $1m to $3m range are clearly possible.

Along with alphafunding, this form of patronage-led funding is perfect for small to mid-sized Indie developers like inXile or Double Fine who have, to put it bluntly, been nothing but repeatedly fucked over by idiot publishers.

Meanwhile the "AAA publishers" can continue to spunk out their annual prolefeed updates and leave the rest of us the fuck alone to play the sort of games we want to play.

Given the way Obsidian Entertainment have just been brutally shafted by their publisher with very little romance, I am hoping that a Chris Avellone Kickstarter might be lurking around a corner.

Planescape 2? *bankrupt face*

I'm fairly sure my donation for a Planescape 2 would lead to my wife divorcing me, but I'd do it anyways.

Oh god NERDGASM! I grew up in the golden age of the 8-bit computer RPGs and cut my teeth on Commodore 64 classics like Ultima 3 and 4, Brian Fargo's own Bard's Tale, and many others. My 8-bit swan song before moving on to an Amiga was my all time favorite, none other then Wasteland.

I quite literally owe my entire career in IT to Ultima 3 on the C64. I was aware of computers, had played some games on the Apple 2C and E as well as learned a bit of BASIC. It was nothing compared to when I got my hands on a C64 and played Ulitma 3. I was literally blown away and hooked on computers from then on. What great memories. My parents buying that machine payed more dividends than school ever did.

Debating on selling a kidney to afford the $250 pledge. Brian Fargo is my hero. He's the father of Wasteland, Bard's Tale, Fallout 1 & 2, and Line Rider =P and the founder of Interplay and InXile.

He had such an eye for talent, finding small studios and giving them their first break. Studios we now know as Blizzard Entertainment, Bioware, and Parallax/Volition.

If it weren't for Brian Fargo, your precious "World of Warcraft", "Diablo 2", "Mass Effect" "Fallout 3/New Vegas" and "Saints Row" probably wouldn't exist. And that's not even including the snowball effect that these games have had.

You owe it to yourself as a gamer to contribute- even if it's $1. This guy is infininutely more influential than Schafer (though I do loves me some Schafer.) Forget the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon. 6 Degrees of Brian Fargo is a piece of cake.

By the way Kyle, I hope Brian Fargo's gonna send you a copy of the game. I bet by posting this article you're going to cause about a hundred grand to be sent his way.

Also:

Quote:

I quite literally owe my entire career in IT to Ultima 3 on the C64. I was aware of computers, had played some games on the Apple 2C and E as well as learned a bit of BASIC. It was nothing compared to when I got my hands on a C64 and played Ulitma 3. I was literally blown away and hooked on computers from then on. What great memories. My parents buying that machine payed more dividends than school ever did.

(Raid on Bungling Bay was pretty cool at the time too.....)

Heh, Me too, CRC, me too. The difference being I had to save up my allowance for 2 years to buy my C-64. Thank god Mr. Tramiel's forced rapid price drops made it possible to afford by 1985, and Dad kicked in for the 1541.

One of the happiest mornings of my life was sitting there and formatting my first 10 floppy disks one "OPEN1,8,15,”N0:”DISKNAME,ID”:CLOSE 1" at a time.

And they should already have a bunch of material they can use from the red-herring entries in the paragraph book from the original game. I remember reading some of those entries and thinking "I wanna play that game!"

This trend does make the imagination run wild thinking about all the great games from the last 20 years or so that deserve sequels.

Maybe TaleWorlds needs to fire up a Kickstarter to get the Mount & Blade 2 development really rolling. I know there is a one sentence blurb in a interview about it already being in development but without anything concrete or a nearly finished product reveal it could very well end up being vaporware. An all around full bodied sequel to M&B Warband that improves on all elements including faction diplomacy, vassal & kingdom management, siege mechanics, terrain and visuals would be a win for everyone.